Path of Jen: Bloodborne

-Bloodborne-

By Sidney Wood

Copyright ©2016 by Sidney A. Wood. All rights
reserved. Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this work, in
whole, or in any individual part, is prohibited without written
consent from the author.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book
remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be
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If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download
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for your support.

This book was written with an eye on current events,
and features true to life circumstances. For everything it is, I
thank my friends and family. I appreciate your patience, good
judgment, and honesty. Thank you Christina, for being interested in
the storyline and inspiring me to work harder. Thank you Moe, for
asking intelligent questions. You helped me find the answers.
Lastly, thank you Nathalie, for reading this one! And, as always,
for letting me write. I don’t know why you love me so much, but I
accept all of it! For everything it is not, I can only say, stick
around and see what comes next.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Note from the
Author

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Author

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Wisps of smoke twisted from
the end of a filter-less cigarette as the driver took another drag.
His olive colored hands trembled slightly, one holding the
cigarette to his lips, the other resting at the top of the steering
wheel. He was parked curbside in the arrivals area at Tehran’s IKA
airport. To a passerby, he looked like any other cab driver waiting
on a fare, but the people he picked up never got to their planned
destination. They simply disappeared.

He put both hands on the wheel and pushed
back against the seat. Rolling his neck, he lowered his head and
slowly exhaled. Smoke billowed out of his mouth, enveloping his
head before escaping out the gap at the top of the window. The
smoke washed away the worry and the guilt. It allowed him to relax
and focus on the job. That’s what this was, after all. It was just
a job. Slowly, he raised his head. His hands were no longer
trembling.

People were starting to come out of the
baggage claim area. The driver watched the crowds for a target. His
employers would take boys if that was all he could get, but girls
were what they wanted…always girls. He glanced at the beaded
necklace hanging from the rear view mirror and winced. He stuffed
the half-smoked cigarette into the overfull ashtray, and pulled a
new one out of his shirt pocket. His hands were trembling again.
Cupping his hands the way he once saw on a poster of the American
Marlboro Man, he lit the new cigarette and took a long slow drag.
“I’m just the driver,”
he told himself for the thousandth
time.
“I just give them a ride.”
He opened his mouth just
enough to let the smoke seep out of his lips and over his face on
its way out of the window.

Through bloodshot eyes he spotted a pretty
teenage girl of about fifteen or sixteen. She was waiting near the
doorway, wearing a full length dark blue dress and yellow hijab,
and looking up and down the sidewalk for her ride. Without a
conscious thought his hand flipped a switch on the dash,
illuminating the taxi light on top of his car. He put the car in
drive and maneuvered to the curb directly in front of the girl.

Ten minutes later the light on top of his cab
was no longer lit. The off-duty taxi sped through the city to a
place the girl had not asked to go. At first she sat quietly and
wondered if he knew of a different route than she was used to. She
worked up the courage to ask where he was taking her, but he did
not answer. She tried to open the door, but it was locked.

He never spoke to them. That would be even
worse. He watched her struggle vainly with the locked door in the
rear view mirror. The swaying necklace caught his eye and he winced
again. He reached down and stuffed the cigarette he was smoking in
the overfull ashtray, and pulled another out of his shirt pocket.
He steered the car with his knee as he lit the new cigarette and
took a long slow drag.

After another ten minutes of seemingly random
driving he turned down a dark and secluded alley. At the end of the
alley he pulled the car into an open garage door and shut off the
engine. The girl in the back seat was frantic and shouting for him
to tell her what was happening, but he ignored her. Pulling the key
from the ignition he grabbed the beaded necklace from the mirror
and stepped out of the car. He closed the door quietly, took a drag
from his cigarette, and walked out of the garage. As he was leaving
he pulled on a rope that hung in the entryway, lowering the
overhead door until it was completely closed and the locking pin
clicked into place. The sounds of her shouting were muffled to a
distant noise and more easily ignored. Tossing the half smoked
cigarette on the ground, he pulled another from his shirt pocket,
cupped his hands and lit it. He took a long slow drag, exhaled, and
then turned and walked away.

In the dark garage, the girl in the yellow
hijab kicked at the doors and windows, trying to get free. She
screamed and sobbed uncontrollably, terrified at what would happen
to her. She prayed to Allah and cried for her mother. “Help me!”
she begged in Farsi, over and over. She fell silent when she saw
the door in the corner of the garage open and two dark figures
entered. An overhead light came on and the men approached the car.
She screamed and tried frantically to open the opposite door. It
wouldn’t budge. One of the men opened the other door and reached
for her. She kicked at him, but he easily brushed her feet aside
and grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the car. He
hoisted her upright and wrapped his arms around her as the other
man placed a black bag over her head. She screamed again, crying
for them to stop, but they did not. She felt a sharp prick in her
shoulder and soon, despite all of her efforts not too, she stopped
resisting. Her head spun and her body felt heavy. She slowly
drifted off to sleep.

Ahmed roughly threw the teenage girl over his
shoulder and followed Hassan back through the same door they had
entered. Hassan’s broad shoulders blocked Ahmed’s view as they
walked through the narrow and poorly lit hall of the old building.
Ahmed didn’t need to see, he just followed the black leather jacket
and black slacks of his partner until they exited the opposite side
of the building. He brushed against Hassan’s shoulder smelling
leather and spiced sweat as he passed him to unload the unconscious
girl into the side of a waiting minivan. Hassan moved to stand near
the front of the van and kept watch as Ahmed closed the sliding
door and fished the keys out of his gray “Member’s Only” jacket.
Ahmed opened the driver side door and hopped in. He waited for
Hassan to climb in the other side before turning the key and firing
up the engine. Ahmed put the van in gear and pulled away from the
empty storefront. Hassan lit a cigarette and handed it to Ahmed
before lighting another for himself. Neither said a word as they
drove the unconscious teenage girl in a dark blue dress and yellow
hijab to her next destination.

Thirty minutes later Ahmed parked the van in
an empty parking lot. He turned off the engine and put out the
cigarette he was smoking. Hassan continued to smoke his own. Ahmed
looked at Hassan and then pointedly at his cigarette. Hassan
shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window. Ahmed leaned back
in his seat and sighed. He hated waiting. He looked over his
shoulder at the girl on the floor in the back, and then glanced at
Hassan. He was still looking out the window. Ahmed looked over his
shoulder again, watching her chest rise and fall slightly with each
breath. He imagined how soft her young teenage skin must feel, and
his heart began to race. He wanted to get in the back with her.

His partner was looking at him now and Ahmed
smiled mischievously. He gestured with is chin toward the girl and
winked at Hassan. He grabbed the door handle and pulled. The door
jarred open, but before he could step out a strong hand grasped his
jacket by the shoulder and yanked him back. Hassan’s cigarette was
hanging from his mouth. One of his hands grasped Ahmed’s jacket,
preventing him from exiting, and the other was curled into a tight
fist, ready to strike. Hassan looked Ahmed directly in the eyes and
slowly shook his head left and right.

Ahmed jerked his shoulder away from Hassan
and sat back in his seat. He slammed the door shut and stared out
the window, avoiding his partner’s accusing look. It wasn’t as if
it mattered. The girl would endure much worse in the days to come.
He spit out the window. Hassan tapped him on the shoulder. Ahmed
refused to look at first, but he smelled the offered cigarette and
changed his mind. He turned and nodded at Hassan. He took the
cigarette and tried to forget the girl.

Ahmed saw a truck approaching the parking
lot. He reached over and tapped Hassan on the arm. The two men
stepped out of the van and took a moment to smooth the wrinkles out
of their clothes. Ahmed walked around to Hassan’s side and opened
the sliding door. The girl was lying still, breathing softly. The
black bag was still over her head.

The truck, a shiny black Toyota SUV, pulled
up alongside the minivan and stopped. The doors opened and a
muscular man with a crew cut and neatly trimmed beard, wearing a
green jogging suit, stepped out. A smaller man wearing blue jeans
and a tight fitting black t-shirt climbed down from the other side.
The big man nodded at Hassan as he stepped closer to look at the
girl. Ahmed pulled the bag off and turned her head to show the big
man her face. He pushed Ahmed aside without looking at him and
inspected more closely. Starting with her scalp and working his way
down her body, he searched her for obvious wounds. Satisfied that
she was in good shape he nodded again at Hassan and stepped back.
Hassan and Ahmed picked her up and transferred her to the back seat
of the truck.

Once she was loaded and the back doors were
secured, the big man and his partner climbed back into their
vehicle. The big man’s window rolled down and he placed an envelope
into Hassan’s hand. Without a word, the window rolled back up and
the shiny black Toyota sped off.

Two days later, a teenage girl in a dirty
blue dress lay on her back in a small bed in the back of a Syrian
brothel. Her uncovered head was turned toward the door and a yellow
hijab lay on the floor nearby. Her eyelids drooped heavily as
opiates continued to sedate her and overrule her wishes to escape.
As she stared blankly, the single door opened quietly and a skinny
man with weathered brown skin and a curly black beard stepped in.
He had not bathed in many days, and the smell of his sweat flooded
the room. The door swung quietly closed and she shut her eyes

Jen pushed the white lace
curtain aside and looked out of her bedroom window. She could see
her father, dressed as usual in gray slacks and a white shirt,
loading his suitcase and carry-on into the back of their silver
Jeep Cherokee. Mom stood near him with her arms crossed, wearing
her favorite tan capri’s and a blue tank top. Beyond the family car
was a short paved driveway and their quiet neighborhood street. The
tree in their front yard was in bloom and some of its tiny pink
blossoms spotted the perfectly trimmed lawn.

“Come on Jena,” her father called from below.
“We have to check in early." Her father was not the kind of man to
complain, usually, but airport security was a sore spot for him. He
travelled within the states frequently for his job, and was always
subjected to full scrutiny, including body scans and pat searches,
from TSA. Now the two of them were traveling abroad to the Middle
East, back to his home for Jen’s sixteenth birthday, and he
expected even more of a delay. Jen’s parents were naturalized
Iranians, and although Jen was born in the US and fully American,
she would probably face the same scrutiny as she travelled.

Jen hurriedly closed the bedroom window and
let the lace curtain fall into place. Despite the hot June weather,
her room was comfortable and cool, just the way Jen liked it. She
took one last look around as she stooped to extend the handle on
her rolling luggage. Her TV and Xbox were turned off, her bed was
made, and her MacBook Air was closed on her desk. Her room was
spotless. Her mother, a doctor at the local hospital, had purchased
Jen the matching luggage set when her father had announced the
surprise trip a month ago. She wished her mother could go with
them, but there was no time to renew her passport and Jen suspected
that a trip to Iran was not something her mother would be excited
about. Her mom had shared stories of her childhood in Iran with
Jen, and although she had many fond memories, the stories were
always to point out the dangers and flawed thinking toward women
within an Islamic state.